It was d?jà vu all over again as Mark Selby turned impending disappointment into pure elation by beating Ronnie O’Sullivan 10-9 in a dramatic conclusion to the PokerStars.com Masters at Wembley Arena last night.
Selby recovered from 9-6 down to collect the £150,000 first prize. It meant he has accumulated £380,000 in only three appearances at the sport’s premier invitational event.
It was a remarkable display from a player known for his tenacity, who stunned O’Sullivan for the second time in a final with a focused coolness under the gun that only the very best match players are able to muster.
Selby has now played 12 matches at Wembley and lost only one. Seven of those successes having arrived after being taken the distance. Much like the late Paul Hunter, who won the Masters three times, he is relaxed, unruffled and has the ideal temperament for the most severe mental examination.
“I just scrapped and scrapped. To beat Ronnie here, and to win like this is just beyond what you can hope for,” Selby, a down-to-earth 26-year-old from Leicester, said.
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O’Sullivan led 5-3 after a trademark burst of brilliance in the first session that saw him take a 4-1 lead — in which he compiled breaks of 86, 122 and 101 — after losing the first frame. Lesser competitors than Selby would have crumbled. Instead, the world No 7 dug deep.
The evening session began with a rousing, standing ovation for both players from a crowd in excess of 2,000 and even though his supporters were overwhelmingly in the minority, Selby responded to the atmosphere.
Assisted by a 136 total clearance, Selby trimmed his arrears to 7-6 before O’Sullivan, potting balls with nonchalant ease as though immune to the tension, swiftly won the next two frames to lead 9-6 thanks to runs of 78, 89 and 91.
Normally, that would have been that, but O’Sullivan knows from bitter experience that Selby is unusually tenacious. In the 2008 Welsh Open final, Selby fought back from 8-5 to beat O’Sullivan 9-8. Last night, that result inspired one of them and concerned the other.
It is customary for O’Sullivan to be a deadly front-runner, but he has been denied on the threshold of success in three previous Masters finals.
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Again O’Sullivan wobbled. Selby resolutely made breaks of 62 and 109 before stealing a gripping eighteenth frame on the black.
O’Sullivan, the world No 1, had two opportunities to seal the frame but, with his cue arm understandably tight, grossly overcut the yellow from its spot and agonisingly left a high-tariff, slowly rolled green, played left-handed with check side, over a corner pocket.
The traditional excitement generated when a marathon boils down to a single-frame duel will co-exist with the downright absurd as Barry Hearn’s brave new world for snooker develops. While promising to keep the World Championship at the Crucible, Hearn also unveiled a plan to employ the Grim Reaper.
Under his chairmanship of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, the Crucible will retain its pre-eminence, avoiding the intended shake up of formats, tournament ambiance and tour structure that Hearn concedes will gall purists.
The zaniest idea — his terminology — is a 64-man, one-frame knockout, played over a weekend. There is nothing outrageous in the outline but learn the detail, and a surreal spectacle unfolds.
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“They’ll have 12 minutes a frame, a 20-second shot clock, ball in hand after a foul and no time to fart around,” Hearn said. “The loser will have to go down the ‘Walk of Shame’ where the Grim Reaper will cover him with his cloak. It’s crass and wonderful.”